April 14, 2012

A Post About Babies and My Lack of Them

For Nick and me, the Easter season comes with some heaviness.  These past few years, we have felt much more connected to the story of Good Friday and the suffering that Jesus experienced than to the redemption and joy experienced on Easter.  Jesus does not promise us a life free from suffering, but He does promise to be near.  This has been our experience.  

Our trouble started almost 3 years ago when we decided we were ready to start having kids.  But, the problem we ran into was not infertility at the time.  There was another medical diagnosis in the family that devastated us and postponed kids for a long time.  This medical diagnosis came on Good Friday.  For a lot of the time that followed, I really believed we would never have biological children, and I spent much of those years mourning the loss of that dream.  When we finally semi-recovered from this and decided we could and should have kids, I felt entitled to getting pregnant and thought it would happen right away.  We had already waited 2 years, and surely God would not make us wait any longer.  But here we are, still waiting.  Really, my "infertility" has only been an issue for 8 months (which I know does not technically classify me as infertile), but it feels like I have been dealing with infertility for three years.

And I’m tired.  I’m tired of trying to control.  I’m tired of being hopeful, only to be let down month after month.  I’m tired of being anxious and stressed and then stressing out about my stress because stressed out people can’t get pregnant, or so I’ve heard.   I’m tired of hearing other people’s glorious look-what-God-did-for-us-we-are-having-a-miracle-baby stories, all the while wondering why God hasn’t shown up for us.  I’m tired of being subjected to baby dedications at church, pregnant people everywhere I go, baby showers, and all that stuff.  It’s isolating and it sucks.

I tell Nick all the time that sometimes I just want to move away from everything just to make this less painful.  But then I remember that, unless we move to a deserted island (which would be fine by me), there will be babies and pregnant people there too.  We can’t move away from this struggle.  So we won’t.  We will stay, and we will fight, and God will be with us, because He is good regardless of how we feel.  Because, what is will not always be.  Because, we have reason to hope even when things feel hopeless.  Because our God is a God of miracles, and even when those miracles don’t happen for us, he is still God and he is still good.  Because Good Friday is not the end of the story.  And I have to trust in that.

"We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed.  We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.  We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God.  We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.  Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies."
2 Corinthians 4:8-10


7 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing so honestly. Our stories are different, but I've been there, too. Being childless really is isolating, especially in our Christian/church culture. I don't think a lot of people understand that. I pray that God will minister to your heart, right where you need him most.

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  2. I can only imagine what you're going through. I never wanted children. Then at 26 I found out that I couldn't have children. It was hard. I mourned the loss of something I didn't even want to start with. My thoughts and prayers are with you right now.

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  3. My heart hurts for you when I read this. I wouldn't dare attempt any words of wisdom. I have lived parallel to this for the past 2 1/2 years with my sister Lisa.

    Her happy ending came in these past few weeks as she has tested positive and is due in November.

    She kept a very honest and detailed account of part of her experience on her blog "Make me Fertile, Myrtle"

    Here is the link from her very first post:
    http://lisavleach.blogspot.com/2011/08/and-so-it-begins.html

    Unlike me, she is a very good writer. I hope if nothing else, maybe it will bring you encouragement and a laugh or two...

    {hugs} to you.

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  4. Thanks for sharing this. I am sure that you could write more about this. Still as I read, you communicate more peace than anything. It'll be fun to keep reading your journal and see what God does.

    Thanks for writing. Great pics.

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  5. What a beautifully written post! Reading your words, I am taken right back to that time in my life. It is hard. It sucks. And nothing that anyone says makes you feel any better, so I won't attempt that.

    Except to say this: God knows His plan for your family, which FAR EXCEEDS any plan that you could ever have. I trust that at some point you will understand His timing. I trust this because He did it for me. He made me wait seven years, and in that time I learned how to love and trust Him even when it is painful. "Blessed be Your Name" has been my anthem for a long time, and it still brings tears to my eyes every time I hear the words.

    Look at that... I guess I said more than I planned. I am praying for you!

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  6. Hey Mindy - the words you speak rang so true for me on a different/but similar level (my sister's 15-month old just suddenly died for no apparent reason) a month ago and even though my kids are healthy, I still walk through the same emotions of losing a nephew so cruely and watching my best friend suffer through the unexplanable. I love the title of your blog: we have often said the phrase to each other recently "thank God for SUNDAY...we lived through the "Friday" but have faith Sunday is coming. And finding that Sunday, waiting on that Sunday, waiting on God's redemption can be an exrutiating process.
    Someone shared this passage from a book with me recently (haven't read the whole thing) that I LOVED, regarding loss and the feelings you've described:

    I Will Carry You (Angie Smith)
    "as christians, we often want
    to tie it up neatly with a bow and be standing ready with our church smiles
    when someone asks us how we are dealing with loss...and i honestly grow weary of hearing people
    try to explain it all away because they couldn't stand to say those three words.
    "I don't know." God is perfectly capable of revealing Himself. you don't have
    to feel like you need to fill in the gaps. He has put the gaps there so that you
    will press into Him despite them... I wholly believe that He is real and He
    is in control. I believe He is working everything in my life, and yours, for good"

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